Land grant
The United States historically gave out numerous land grants as homesteads to individuals desiring to make a farm.
The American Industrial Revolution was guided by many supportive acts of legislatures (for example, the Main Line of Public Works legislation of 1863) promoting commerce or transportation infrastructure development by private companies, such as the Cumberland Road turnpike, the Lehigh Canal, the Schuylkill Canal and the many railroads that tied the young United States together.
The Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated in 1670 with the grant of Rupert's Land by King Charles II of England; this vast territory was greater than one third the area of Canada today.
The Plantations of Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries involved the confiscation of some or all the land of Irish lords and its grant to settlers ("planters") from England or Scotland.
Similar schemes were later used when royal charters were granted by the Crown to English proprietary colonies in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
Under this doctrine of planting and seeding, the patentee was required to cultivate one acre (4,000 m2) of land and build a small house on the property, otherwise the patent would revert to the government.
[citation needed] Spain and Mexico used the same system of offering land grants along the Rio Grande River near the Texas/Mexico border.
These grants were given to help colonization of the area, initially by the Spanish crown, and later by Mexican authorities [clarification needed] nationals, and strengthen frontier towns along the Texas border.
[8] Future President Thomas Jefferson crafted the Ordinance of 1784, which carved out ten prospective states west of the Appalachian Mountains and established the basis for the Public Land Survey System.
Starting with the American Revolutionary War, veterans often received land grants instead of backpay or other remuneration.
There is general agreement that the United States' federal policy of offering land grants had a positive impact on economic development in the 19th century.
